Empty Nesters
by Watson-A-Name92
Summary: Sequel to Old Boys. AU. "Don't you think it's weird?" the Sheriff asked. "We're adults dealing with our kids' werewolf drama?" "We should start a book club," Deucalion commented dryly. They stared at him. He was making that face again: the where no one knew if he was joking or not. Melissa snorted and immediately covered her mouth to stifle it. Sheriff/Melissa/Chris, Deucalion/OC.


**Sequel to Old Boys. Can stand on its own, but one part may be a bit confusing if you don't give that a read first.**

* * *

Three years after they had started up their rag tag friendship, Chris Argent and and Noah Stilinski were fairly sure that they should've seen Peter betraying them and the McCall pack coming. They _had_ to a point, but at least Noah had tried to be optimistic. Scott and the others had taken care of that particular issue. What neither of them saw coming was that Deucalion of all people had replaced Peter in their group.

His entrance into the group had been as much of an accident as its formation. Chris and Noah had gone for a beer at a bar at the edge of town. Deucalion had been at the end of the bar itself. Chris and Noah both knew that something had happened with him and the kids and the fight against that Jennifer woman, and Deucalion's apparent stance as The Bad Guy had turned out to be fairly skewed. They knew Scott had told him to leave, think about everything and try to get his life back together the way it used to be. Of course, the fact that he was in a bar a matter of months later, the exact opposite of a place that should've been productive, it set Chris off enough to have him go for his gun. He would've pointed it too, if Noah hadn't caught the emotion enough to grab the man's arm and wrestle his hand down just in time. "Public!" he hissed.

"Would end badly for everyone!" Deucalion added.

Chris marched over to him and sat down on the stool beside him, and Noah gave the place a quick once over before he joined them.

"Is that a threat?"

"To a man who was about to shoot an unarmed man for just existing? Yes. To the patrons who would most likely see me change out of instinct and be met with the knowledge that there are things that go bump in the night? No," Deucalion replied.

Noah rolled his eyes. Melissa had said the man was a dramatic little shit back in the months when he was still the primary enemy. ' _Primary enemy', Jesus Christ_. He needed a drink. At least that was what they were there for. There was a joke somewhere in this situation. _Two killers and a cop walk into a bar… No. Nope. Don't even go there._ This was probably going to end badly. He was at least going to get that drink before it did. He ordered a beer and then turned back to the other two who were dead silent. Chris seemed to be staring him down, and Deucalion… looked almost amused by it. He made a show of not being affected in the least. Noah, however, was smarter than that. Years of being a cop had taught him just where to look on a person's jaw to see if they were really pissed, and sure enough, Deucalion's was clenched. _Deescalte the situation before it gets ugly._ "So… Deucalion? Deucalion, right? Do you still go by..." he trailed off. "You know, nevermind. Uh… what happened with your…?" he trailed off and waved his fingers around his eyes. "Melissa told us you were uh…"

"Jennifer's parting gift to me. Oh, and do apologize to Ms. McCall on my behalf about my… behavior with her a few months ago."

"Do it yourself," Chris countered.

"I'd… rather like to solidify my effort to apologize by not approaching her, actually," Deucalion pointed out.

Noah tilted his head. He could appreciate that, at least. He could feel the agitation coming off of Chris and leaned over so he was closer to Deucalion than the other man. "Fine. We will."

"Good."

Chris, however, still wasn't having it. "Scott exiled you, why're you here?" Chris asked.

Deucalion arched an eyebrow. "It wasn't exactly an exile, and do you see me anywhere near them? I am outside of the town line, after all. I play by the rules. Don't you worry." When Chris continued to frown, he sighed. "Can't a man enjoy a drink?" Chris continued to stare, and Deucalion looked at Noah for support. He fought an eyeroll when Noah put his hands up and kept free of that particular conflict. "Well, I highly doubt you came for a confrontation, so why don't you sit down, have a drink, and we can all be on our way peacefully."

"Only if you follow that rule too," Chris countered.

"... I'm sorry, which one out of the three of us was here first, minding their own business?"

Chris grumbled, then faced the counter and flagged the bartender over.

The three of them drink in the most uncomfortable silence Noah had ever been a part of.

* * *

Weeks later, Scott, Chris, Stiles and the others dealt with a new threat. Noah wasn't sure what the threat was, even after all the grief was over with. Stiles was talking too quickly, Scott barely got a word in edgewise. He hadn't seen Chris. He was sure he should be more concerned about that last bit, but he knew Chris well enough now that he shouldn't be worried at all. He heard that Deucalion had come back, only to side with the enemy. Go figure, he should've let Chris kill the bastard. Another few days later it turned out Scott and Deucalion were in on a backup plan together, and Deucalion's reverse change of heart had been a ploy. Deucalion had saved Scott, and the others in the big fight. It was Melissa of all people who tracked Deucalion down afterward and offered to take him out to dinner with the other two in tow.

Really, it was a wonder that they hadn't brought Melissa into their little debriefing meals sooner. Noah was grateful that Deucalion accepted the offer after everything. That didn't mean that he wasn't a little satisfied when the first thing out of the woman's mouth when he showed was a threat about pulling any of the double crossing nonsense again or hurting Scott and his friends.

The man genuinely looked intimidated before promising he wouldn't.

Even super werewolves were terrified of Melissa McCall, and Noah loved it.

Melissa demanded for Deucalion to continuously send them updates on the kids when he was the only one who could accompany them into danger or was least likely to get caught when shadowing them, and he agreed again.

Days later, Noah was convinced that Deucalion somehow knew that he would need the most reassurance about Stiles' safety on future missions out of all of the adults since he got the most text messages from the man. Most of them were quick, simple things: **Monster of the day/week dead. Stiles and Scott safe. On their way home.**

It was about the seventh time that Deucalion provided an update that Noah finally answered with, _**Good. What about you**_ **?**.

Deucalion didn't respond, and Noah finally found himself overthinking possibilities of why that was. It wasn't until the fourth time that he asked Deucalion how he was after the updates that he finally got a "fine" in return. Having raised a teenager alone, he knew what that meant. He was hardly surprised when he walked into Deaton's practice a couple of hours later with a question for Deaton, only to find Deucalion sitting on one of the tables with a deep, bloody gash across his left shoulder. He merely pointed out that he knew something had gone wrong. What did surprise him was that Deucalion scoffed at the reaction, but there was no animosity behind it.

A few days later he, Deucalion, Melissa and Chris were all at dinner again. Melissa had started telling some story, and Deucalion had actually laughed at the joke that she interjected halfway through. The others tried not to stare in reaction to the foreign sound. That was the other strange thing. Even after he had used Melissa as a bargaining chip, the pair had gotten along swimmingly well. Noah figured that it was just her experience from Peter doing the same but being far more violent that allowed her to be lenient with the werewolf.

* * *

The next time they were at dinner was days after he found out that Chris and Melissa had started dating. He wasn't sure how to feel. He knew that he had started to have some sort of attraction to Melissa the last couple of years. Dealing with all of this supernatural nonsense and being in several near death experiences did that to people... or he supposed in his case, just _a_ person. But he had kept it quiet. He had only ever gotten the girl when he met Claudia, and before that, it was rejection or fear of rejection that had stopped him from doing so. It wasn't like he had talked to anyone about it, most of all Chris, either. So yes, he wanted to punch the guy out when he found out, but then there was the typical 'they're my friends and they're happy so I'm happy' logic that had always clawed into him. But now they sat painfully close to each other and made eye contact a lot more before they had apparently decided to be naturally aware of the awkwardness and slid away from each other or looked at the other two instead. He decided to look like he found his pizza far more interesting than whatever conversation was going on. His phone beeped seconds later. He feared it was Stiles or one of the others telling them about trouble, but Deucalion hadn't excused himself yet. He glanced Deucalion's way to confirm it, only to find that Deucalion was giving him a pointed look. Maybe he was wrong. He glanced at the screen. It was from Deucalion.

 **Want me to make him disappear?**

He set his jaw and stared at the werewolf, who shrugged subtly. He slipped his hand down to respond.

 _ **No! What happened to you not wanting to kill people anymore?**_

A few seconds passed and his phone beeped again. He silenced it, then checked it.

 **I like you better. You don't have a gun trained on me right now. And you aren't the son of the bastard who blinded me.**

Noah wanted to protest on Chris' behalf, but if the werewolf was here that was already better than the worst case scenario. He was playing nice cautiously. It hadn't come to blows between them in any capacity... yet. It was another thing he could appreciate.

In the present, Noah looked Chris' way. Sure enough, the hand closest to Deucalion was under the table and looked like it was tilted towards the werewolf. He looked back at his phone and answered.

 _ **Still no. And now I might just have to bring a gun after that threat.**_

 **It was just an offer.**

 _ **I can arrest you for that offer.**_

He sent the text and stared at Deucalion. When the werewolf checked his own phone and smirked, he rolled his eyes.

Melissa looked between them. "Everything okay?"

"Work stuff," Noah dismissed it.

Melissa frowned. "Are Scott and Stiles...?"

Noah shook his head. "Non-supernatural work stuff."

Melissa looked at Deucalion. "And yours?"

"Ethan wants advice about college life," Deucalion replied, also completely smoothly.

Melissa hardly looked convinced, but nodded anyway.

They finished eating, then talked business for a while. They came up with random words to sub in for the supernatural things if someone passed by on their way into or out of the restaurant. Noah was the first to break after a while. "Don't you think it's kinda weird?" he asked. "We had all those shows growing up and now all the 'Next Generation' stuff is out there, when here in reality it's reversed and the older generation is dealing with our kids' supernatural drama?"

Chris only shrugged, and but Melissa raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly.

"We should start a book club," Deucalion commented dryly. They all turned to stare at him. He was making that face again: the one where no one knew if he was joking or not.

After a few beats of silence, Melissa broke and snorted. She immediately covered her mouth to stifle it.

Deucalion smirked, and the others weren't sure what was more startling: the laugh, the joke, or the smile.

They went back to small talk afterward. Eventually, Melissa checked her watch and sighed. "I'm due into work early tomorrow, so I have to cut this short. I'll see you all soon." She eased out of the booth and gave them a final wave as they all said goodbye.

Noah was admittedly a relieved when Chris didn't leave with her.

A few minutes later, Deucalion spotted something out the window. "And there is my ride, gentleman. Don't stay out too late, now. We need Beacon Hill's finest at their best."

They waved and he got out to leave.

Noah felt bad that he suddenly felt uncomfortable that it was just the pair of them. Chris was his best friend, and now this whole Melissa thing had put a wrench in the works even with him trying not to put it there.

"... I still don't trust him," Chris announced.

Noah chuckled at the distraction. "Yeah, I'm still not sure either, but he's doing well... I think." He looked out the window as Deucalion got into the co-passenger seat of a car in the parking lot. His face immediately fell.

Chris turned to watch him as well, then let out a breath's worth of a laugh when the werewolf leaned over and kissed the driver. "Well, he hasn't wasted time in that department."

"Hey, Chris?" Noah asked.

"Uh huh?"

"You sure that he hasn't done anything I can arrest him for?"

Chris frowned at him. "What?"

"You know, actual non-werewolf murder, assault... bunch of speeding tickets, maybe?"

Chris smiled. "Wha- you would know more about that than I would."

"Yeah but you're around _the business_ more."

"What's this about?" Chris asked. "I thought you two were actually getting along pretty well. Not that I'm not happy that you're suddenly a little more suspicious."

Noah stared at him for a while, then sighed and hung his head. "That's my younger sister in the car," Noah hissed.

"Oh," Chris nodded.

Noah knew he was trying to sound sympathetic but found the entire situation hilarious.

"My sister's dating a werewolf..." he murmured. Then, quieter, "My sister is dating a _murderer_. And I can't even tell her."

Chris blanched. "Some of them were in self defense?" he offered. "I'm one, too," he pointed out.

Noah grunted in acknowledgement. He had a point. He just wasn't sure why the Hell it had taken him so long to see it that way. The more he thought about it, the more uncomfortable he got. But he had been in the loop for a couple of years now. There had to be a point where all of this stopped getting terrifying or surprising, right?

The next morning, Noah had weirdly come to terms with the new development well. Sure, Deucalion was a werewolf and a murderer. But werewolf... etiquette was far off from human law, the bloodlust was at least mostly caused by outside forces, and he hadn't killed anyone since his promise to Scott. Not to mention that if supernatural forces spread out from Beacon Hills, she would be in good hands. He flinched at what images that brought up. _Bad analogy._ _T_ a _ken care of? Still kinda bad._ Protected. _Better._

A few days later, he got another text from Deucalion.

 **So.**

Noah would've laughed if he hadn't figured that Deucalion somehow found out what he had found out before. If it was any word that the werewolf would use that would most likely be loaded, that was it.

 _ **So.**_

As if on cue, the werewolf answered the unasked question:

 **You and I have a lady friend in common.**

Noah groaned again. Did the werewolf always have to be overdramatic?

 _ **We do.**_

 **Ex?**

 _ **Little sister.**_

Noah figured Deucalion was the kind of person who would apologize or claim that he didn't know if that particular detail came out into the open. What he got instead was:

 **Ah.**

Noah shook his head. He wasn't sure if the werewolf was digging for information or trying to get a rise out of him. For someone who thrived on dramatics and liked the sound of his own voice, he could be too quiet and cryptic quite a bit. His thoughts came screeching to a halt when he realized that the only way Deucalion could've known about his connection to Charlotte was if he found that family photo that she had. The family photo that he had last seen on one of her bed's nightstands when she was giving him a tour after she remodeled her house. The implication set in and he flinched again. He was going to kill Deucalion. Alpha of Alphas _his ass_ , he was going to find a way, with or without Chris or Scott or anyone else. He inhaled sharply. Easy there, Noahny Boy. Charlie's an adult, she can make her own decisions, she didn't need her big brother rescuing her or butting into her personal life, no matter what the circumstances were. Shit. He still wanted to kill him. He went back to his phone. He contemplated a response. The ideas kept getting less violent until he came up with the simplest one.

 _ **I've got two different armies on my side if you break her heart.**_

There, it was a threat that didn't seem lacking because he wouldn't be able to cause actual harm on his own, and being too direct with mentioning his friends doing the harm was probably overkill. And fairly pathetic. He checked his phone after a few minutes.

 _Read: 9:33am._

He groaned again and put his phone down and tried not to think about what Deucalion was possibly up to that the bastard had chosen not to respond.

* * *

"I usually went with a .45 to make a point with any of the boys Allison brought home," Chris said a few days later.

Noah looked up at him. Chris had thankfully gotten over the phase where he thought the whole 'Deucalion is Dating Noah's Sister' thing was funny. Now the pair of them were at the gun range. For completely, non-overprotective-big brother, work reasons, obviously. Even Melissa had tagged along, having figured that it was time she learned given her involvement in the last few years. Noah's heart broke a little bit at the 'were' in Chris' statement. "Yeah, but... Scott was a teenage boy at the end of the day. This guy's an adult... cardigan-wearing Bond Villain with ten times the superpowers who thought it was socially acceptable to hang out with teenagers for a while."

"Okay, well, that particular note aside, I think it's kinda fitting that he's kinda part of the extended family now," Melissa added.

"He threatened you twice," Chris countered, at the same time that Noah said, "You just think that 'cause he's British."

"He said it wouldn't happen again, and it hasn't," Melissa countered to Chris and elbowed Noah in the ribs. "Besides, _Sheriff_ , you were the one that was all gung-ho about making sure we were friendly to him just in case he had the opportunity to switch sides again. And another girl in our group would be nice! I'm surrounded by testosterone all the time!"

"Yeah, well, that was before he was sleeping with my sister," Noah countered. He pointedly ignored the testosterone comment. The last thing he wanted was his sister getting involve with the werewolf business.

" _Unknowingly_! That's gotta count for something, right?" Melissa asked.

"Knowing didn't stop him. And no," Noah said. "Hell, our mom had a family barbecue last week. She dragged him along. We pretended we didn't know each other. Charlie introduced him as Duke. Do you know how hard it is to address the guy who tried to kill our kids once as Duke?!"

"Did he at least play nice with your family?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"Kept his hands to himself?" Chris teased.

Noah groaned. "I hate both of you."

Chris pat him on the back. "You sure you don't wanna borrow one of my .45s?"

"Now I never said that."

* * *

A year later, things were weirdly quiet. Scott and the others had taken care of the threat of the month, and the days after were almost too hauntingly quiet and uneventful. Noah's most important case of the week was an armed robbery. Melissa's was a heart attack victim, and Chris hadn't heard any whispers about new threats. Noah had let himself get a little too optimistic and hopeful that maybe things were finally dying down. Of course, a brand new pack of very angry werewolves arrived within minutes of him coming to that conclusion.

As it turned out, Deucalion's old crew wasn't the only entire pack of power hungry alphas in existence. They were Hell bent on taking Scott's power. Through some stroke of luck, however, they weren't going to kill everyone who stood in their way. They just got beaten to shit and literally got thrown out of the way. Melissa had been bodily thrown. Noah and Chris had gotten clawed just under their collar bones. The wolves had at least tried a little harder with Deucalion, ripping a section of his neck open. Luckily for him, his healing caught up to the injury just before it would've gotten fatal. The pack had left them to find Scott. The pack had cornered the four of them when they had been coming up with a plan to be Scott's backup, and they had all been literally tossed into a heap in the corner of the warehouse the pack had tracked Scott and the others to.

One of the wolves had commented that Deucalion was too weak compared to Scott to even bother killing, and the others weren't sure if that was a good thing or not. It added to the danger Scott and the kids were in, but at least it kept a strong werewolf on their side.

And then the other reinforcements came- another pack from Hill Valley that Scott had contacted a while back.

A pack that Charlotte was apparently a member of, glowing yellow eyes, fangs and all.

Noah, to his credit, took in the sight of her all werewolfed out and heaved a heavy sigh. Finally things had stopped being surprising, and this was just the icing on the cake. He elbowed Deucalion in the hip- the closest part of his body, given their predicament. "I'm gonna kill you," he said, though there wasn't much emotion behind it.

" _That_ was not me," Deucalion replied.

"So what, she was one before you came along?" he asked.

"Obviously. Do you think I'd go for someone human?! I do need to rebuild my pack."

Noah tried to will away the 'that meant babies' thought. "How long has she been-"

"Not a clue."

So Noah was the only one who had been out of the werewolf loop, no matter what Stiles, Chris or any of the others had said. He groaned out loud for a while, then started to untangle himself from the human knot. The others followed suit.

They made it to Scott and the others a few minutes later, stumbling all the way. Scott and his pack and Charlotte and hers and the others had managed to dispatch most of the other wolves, and it took Chris and Noah wrestling Deucalion back to prevent him from making sure they stayed down. Scott was insistent that he had changed, the others could to. It didn't stop them from calling up Parrish and throwing them in the farthest cells away from the main population back at the station.

Noah met his sister outside. He was at least a little satisfied that she had the decency to look guilty. "So... you're a werewolf."

"I am."

Noah sighed. He tried the same question that Deucalion had deflected. "How long have you been one?"

"Remember that family vacation in Maine we took a couple of years before you went off to college?"

 _Fucking Maine._ She had snuck off with a boy one of those nights. Her weird cut off behavior after that night made a Hell of a lot more sense. "

Charlotte nodded again, then frowned. "Is Stiles...?"

"No. He's... not a werewolf, but... uh... there was... something else he was. It wasn't good, that's for sure."

"When did you find out about all this?" she asked.

"Three years ago. There was... I got caught in the middle of a... fight between Chris over there and a werewolf. Kinda hard not to get the lowdown when your son's friend's dad snaps some guy's neck and the guy wakes up Hell bent on having a conversation afterward."

"Oh," Charlotte nodded slowly and blinked.

Noah nodded slowly. He had never had to talk about that event out loud. It had sounded far less bizarre in his head. He wasn't sure why he thought he could explain it as matter-of-factly as he had. There was dead silence for a while. And then Noah couldn't take it anymore. "Really? Deucalion? _Really_?"

"Oh my God. I think when I hit thirty you lost all your right to be Protective Older Brother."

"Isn't he a little old for you?"

"You just found out I was a werewolf and that's your priority?"

"It's my job! ... Dad would hate him."

"Well, considering Mom found him charming, I doubt that."

"Of course she did. Bastard has that effect on every single woman who comes across him."

He walked away from her before she had the option to drill him on that particular response.

Minutes later, Stiles had been caught up with the news, and he was just as equally unhelpful.

"So... Aunt Charlie's a werewolf, she and Deucalion are the local werewolf power couple now. That's... kinda awesome. And super convenient for Scott."

"... I expected another response."

"Yeah, well, we're a bunch of twenty year olds and considering our dating record within this group, we really have no right to judge."

"... Fair enough."

* * *

Another year later, and things were different all over again. Now all the kids had gone off to college and barely had time to be around the house, let alone visit. Noah was sure there was werewolf business going on behind the scenes, but he had fallen for the peace and quiet again, and for once, it had stayed relatively quiet for them. Thanksgiving was less than a week ago, and Melissa had shown up at his place with a bunch of bags of groceries- with Chris hauling in even more behind her. She had suggested having a get together with all three families so 'it would feel less like an empty nest just for a little bit.' She had mentioned having to work most of that week, so she wanted to make the food and make that the fun experience so she didn't miss out on anything when the actual holiday and eating it all came around. That didn't stop him from being confused as to why his house had been volunteered as the prep house. He had planned on cracking a joke about it until Melissa had shoved a pie pan at him and ordered him to get to work on getting a crust going. And when Melissa McCall told you to do something, you did it. Melissa had tasked Chris with stuffing. There was something near comical about the fact that now Noah had associated Chris with nothing but guns nowadays. He could shoot perfectly, assemble and disassemble guns in record time, and here he was, mulling over a recipe that Noah just happened to have laying around under countless other books.

They caught up about Scott, Stiles and the others after that. Melissa had asked about Charlotte and Deucalion after that, and Noah had blurted out some deflecting question about Scott. He was fairly sure Charlotte had the start of a baby bump on one of her latest pictures on Facebook. He was also pretty sure she and Deucalion were still together despite his expected absence on social media. If he followed that thought process to much, he just got angrier and more confused. He had lost sleep a week ago wondering if the children of two werewolves counted as 'babies' or 'pups', which was something he never thought he'd have to think about ever, let alone wanted to do again.

Melissa had sensed the unease and directed them into the living room. She brought them each a beer and then got a glass of wine for herself.

They were silent again for a while. Melissa sighed heavily. "We're empty nesters. When did that happen?"

"When we started getting old," Chris answered.

Melissa laughed, but it immediately faded. "Oh, Chris, I'm sorry, the empty nesters thing was a stupid-"

Chris shook his head. "Your guys' kids are just as much my own with everything that's happened. Allison may not be here, but that doesn't mean I'm not proud of the others. Or you guys, for that matter. You raised some fantastic kids."

"So did you," Noah countered.

Chris squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. After a beat, he took his beer bottle and raised in into the air between them. "To many happy returns, for us and the kids."

Melissa and Noah reached over to take part in the cheers, murmuring in agreement.

"And if Noah's right about his sister, to the baby being healthy so we can all share in that experience all over again!" Melissa teased right before they were about to drink.

"Oh, _come on!"_

Despite his protest, once Melissa and Chris both laughed at the addition, he broke and laughed too. "You're both awful people."

"You wouldn't have it any other way."

"No. No, I wouldn't."


End file.
